East of the Sun

by Trey R. Barker

Laimo flexed her jaw. “No.”

  “No, what?” Kleopping kept his eyes hard on her.

  “No, sir.”

  “Everyone get back to work. Shields and batons cleaned. Holding cells cleaned. Floors swept and mopped. Laimo, write the report. A fully detailed and realized report. No short cuts. It’ll probably take you a while.”

  As the deputies spread out, anger burned Jace’s blood as hot as her own piss had when the ERTs stormed A Pod and slammed her to the ground the night Thomas died. Hearing Laimo laugh about a man’s degradation infuriated her.

  “Sounds like you’re persona non grata around here.” Jace toweled off her boots. “At least when you hang with me.”

  “With Laimo? She’s an idiot and if you paid me a million bucks, I couldn’t possibly care less about what she thinks.”

  “She’s not the only one, though.” Jace tapped the breast pocket of her uniform shirt. Inside was one of the flyers she frequently found stuffed in her locker. Tonight’s had a hangman game on it, with most of a stick figure filled in and four spaces for letters beneath it. Three of the spaces were filled in with letters from her name. J. A. E.

  “Been a few days since the last one,” Rory said. “They’re getting bored.”

  “Maybe.”

  “They wanted to see you lash out. You’re not playing ball.” Rory wrote an imaginary note. “ ‘Doesn’t play well with others.’ ”

  In the aftermath of Thomas’s death, the Badgett case had led to a number of officers being arrested around the state. In her own shop, there were deputies who blamed Jace. She’d been yelled at, threatened, spit at, and twice physically attacked by some of the very officers with whom she worked. At first, in the days after the arrests, the hangman flyers—and worse—had come every day, carefully shoved through the lower air vent in her locker and decorated with full color pictures of dead rats and children killed by pedophiles and sometimes a Photoshopped version of her, dead and bloody.

  “Troglodytes.”

  Jace blinked in surprise. “Troglodytes?”

  “Cave dweller? Mouth breather?”

  “I know what it is. I’m just surprised you know. That’s a three-syllable word.”

  “Yeah, well, troglodytes—” Rory counted syllables on her fingers. “Don’t scare me.”

  While they talked, Jimmson came over, his face flushed a serene red with a nicotine-stained, yellow-toothed smile in the middle of it. His breath was long and deep.

  “Any fun?” Rory asked.

  “You betcha. But we got him down pretty quick. He was all mouth. Didn’t want to play.”

  “Deputy get hurt?” Rory asked.

  Jimmson grunted. “Croft? No. I’ll never understand why he wanted to be a deputy. Scared to death of everything. Can’t do shit by himself. He hates everything about the job.”

  “Doesn’t hate the badge. The badge is what it’s all about.”

  “Yeah, I guess. No, he didn’t get hurt, God knows how. Neither did Doc Wrubel. The guy—Mercer—was pissed in a big way, though. Needed some asthma meds and Wrubel said no. Hadn’t been approved yet.” Jimmson shrugged. “Mercer never hit anybody. Pushed the computer off the counter. Broke a stethoscope, too. Wrubel was talking to him and probably would’a had the guy talked down. Croft panicked, but it broke up the night for us, didn’t it?”

  Swallowing, Jace asked, “What’d you do with him?”

  “Medical holding, at least until tomorrow morning. Cruz will decide where he goes. Didn’t have to strap him down or anything. Once we got him on the ground, he was fine. He even thanked us for not hurting him.”

  When the ERTs entered a pod, everyone went hard to the floor—guard, inmate, visitor—and were held there until the ERT commander sorted out the situation.

  “Because of meds.” Jace shook her head.

  “You know how it works,” Rory said. “Might not be pretty, but that’s how it is.”

  “I know, but come on. Asthma meds?”

  “Cruz is a control junkie.” Jimmson squeezed his legs together. “Has to approve everything.”

  “It’s a harsh methodology,” Cruz had once told Jace. “It is how we have to do things. Think of it this way: if the clients have been taking their prescriptions, then those drugs will still be in their system and they can afford to miss a day or two, and anyway, so many of our clients bond out within two or three days. Now, if the clients haven’t been taking their prescriptions, maybe they don’t like the side effects and I will not force anyone to take medication if the situation isn’t life-threatening. Or maybe they can’t afford them and want the county to pay for it.”

  “Man, I’d hate to get sick up in here.” Rory shook her head.

  “Rules is rules, Rory-Bory.” Jimmson had about a decade behind the badge. He winked at them. “You look unhappy with that, Jace, but do you wanna be on the hook for making medical decisions? Hell, no. I love having medical staff. Hand the inmate over and let those guys deal with it.”

  “Still, that’s gotta suck if your head’s banging around,” Rory said.

  “Yeah.” Jimmson squeezed his legs together. “Gotta run. Excitement always makes me want to pee.”

  “Better stay away from sex, then.” Rory laughed.

  “I’m married; sex is dead to me.”

  Jace sat behind her computer, punched up an internet radio station, and found Miles Davis. “Kind of Blue,” she said to Rory’s blank stare. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.”

  “Ain’t interested.”

  Jace grinned. Rory said jazz wasn’t her thing but she was slowly coming over.

  “You know, I’d bet even money half the ERT calls are for medical.”

  Jace shook her head. “He ought to be able to get asthma medicine.”

  “I know. But jail medical problems are contagious; you’ve been here long enough to see that. One inmate needs an inhaler and suddenly everyone does. One inmate needs antibiotics and suddenly everyone does. Doesn’t matter what it is, everyone catches it.”

  Jace and Rory had become pretty good friends over the last few months, but there were still aspects of working in a jail, a job that warehoused human beings, that offended her. “Some people really need those things. They’re not all looking to trade or sell.”

  Rory grinned. “You see who was last through the door going in?”

  “Yep.”

  “And first coming out?”

  “Yep.”

  Laughing, they whispered at the same time, “Laimo.”

  Rory tore open a package of Skittles and held it out to Jace. “Wanna eata?”

  “Passa thanka.”

  Rory popped a handful into her mouth. “Mmmm . . . all the deliciousness of high-fructose corn syrup.”

  “Whatever, Etta.”

  Rory cocked her head. “Huh?”

  Jace laughed. “Nothing.”

  Eventually the clock rolled past three a.m. Jace waited for arrestees who never arrived and played more music, alternating between jazz for herself and classical for Rory. The other deputies tried to stay awake or at least not sleep too obviously, some of them occasionally humming a Christmas carol. Laimo worked on her nail polish and let her head loll against the wall. Jimmson worked on one of his new radio-controlled airplanes and slowly built from pieces to plane. Kleopping was intent on his schoolwork—a master’s in criminal justice. Someday, he wanted to be sheriff. There was little noise beyond the music Jace and Rory played. The entire booking area had gone silent, a cemetery encased in concrete walls and metal furnishings bolted to those walls.

  Into the blanket of silence snapped the electric lock of the door leading directly to the medical pod. A youngish man, call him late thirties, came in.

  “Dr. Wrubel,” Kleopping said.

  Rory looked up, curiosity ripe on her face.

  Wrubel, the assistant doctor who worked mostly overnights, had a short conversation with Kleopping, both faces locked in tight smiles. Eventually, they shook hands and Wrubel headed back to medica
l. When he caught Rory’s gaze, he altered his path.

  “Jailer.”

  “Quack.”

  He tossed her a small bag of Skittles. “Thanks for last week. And Merry Christmas.”

  She eyed the Skittles suspiciously. “These are full strength, right? Not like the drugs you sell on the side.”

  “Shut up,” he said with a laugh.

  “Last week?” Jace asked.

  “Quack here was handing out meds that weren’t working. Had himself a hard time with two or three johnnies.” Rory puffed her chest out. “I had to save the day for him.”

  “Yeah, that’s how it happened.” Wrubel shook his head. “Bad drugs. Or people have tolerances built up or whatever. Happens sometimes. Give them to the patients and they don’t do anything. At least with the heroin withdrawals, it’s not about the drugs.” His voice deepened in imitation of Dr. Cruz. “ ‘Cold turkey and aspirin. Maybe some soup if they can keep it down. That, Dr. Wrubel, is the Cruz Medical protocol for heroin withdrawal.’ ”

  “A little dope-sick spiritual medicine,” Rory said.

  Wrubel shrugged. “Well, it’s inexpensive and it teaches a moderately painful lesson. Always looking to save money and teach lessons.”

  “So . . .” Rory jerked a thumb toward medical.

  “Mercer wanted his asthma inhaler.” He shrugged at Jace’s blank look. “Hasn’t been approved. I’m sure it will be tomorrow morning.”

  “But you’re a doctor,” Jace said. “Do it now.”

  “I’m also an employee of Cruz Medical and we do things a certain way.”

  “Don’t sweat Cruz,” said Rory. “With any luck, he’ll get himself a pile of new state contracts, make millions, and be out of our hair. Pretty soon, too, I betcha. He had another tour tonight. He canceled it when everybody got rolled by hookers.”

  Wrubel’s eyes grew wide. “What?”

  “No, they didn’t,” Jace said. “They did get drunk, though. Hey, Mercer said doctors were selling drugs to johnnies.”

  Wrubel licked his lips. “Guess I missed that. Just a pissed-off inmate. All kinds of crap comes out of their mouths.”

  “Had a pissed-off johnny give me winning lotto numbers one time. Except they were letters. K. I. S. S. M. Y. A. S. S.” Rory laughed. “Anyway, maybe you’ll get lucky and get to be head quack around here when Cruz’s new contract goes through.”

  “Maybe. He and I talked about it a few months ago but he won’t say much now—said he didn’t want to jinx the whole thing—but he’s pretty upbeat.” Wrubel shook his head. “Ought to be. He gets the contracts he wants? Millions. Won’t be doctoring much after that . . . take too much time to count all his money.” He took a deep breath.

  “Quack? You okay?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. You know . . . contracts and whatever. A little fear of the unknown, I guess.”

  “Contracts won’t have anything to do with you, will they?”

  “Not directly, no, but if Cruz Medical grows, it’ll breed bureaucracy, you know? That’s why I left the UT medical system. Too much paperwork, not enough doctoring. Don’t get me wrong—Cruz is great at corporate leadership. I just don’t want to be part of a giant corporation.”

  “Not smart enough?”

  “Hah. Exactly. I’ve got a friend in town and all he does is family medicine. Doesn’t even always get paid. Sometimes they pay in fresh eggs or fresh ham or whatever.”

  Rory cocked her head. “Sooooo . . . about ninety billion years of medical school for . . . breakfast?”

  “Tough to pay off student loans that way, I’d think,” Jace said.

  Wrubel dropped his voice. “No student loans . . . didn’t actually go to med school.” He flopped his stethoscope around. “Not even real. It squirts water.”

  The grin went out of his voice and eyes quickly, and he took a deep breath. “ERTs shook me up, I guess.”

  That’s not it, Jace realized. His face belied his words. His hands played at the corner of the booking desk and he continually licked his teeth.

  “Anyway, thanks for last week.”

  “Later, Sawbones.”

  “Later, Warden.”

  He disappeared back into medical and the door closed behind him like a metallic fist.

  From across booking, Kleopping whistled to get everyone’s attention. “Doc Wrubel said thanks. Said you guys did a great job. Jimmson, you got a special Merry Christmas thanks from the inmate. Said thanks for not cracking his skull.”

  “I’d’a cracked his skull.” Laimo sniffed.

  “Hard to do from the back of the line.” Jimmson never looked up from his plane.

  “Cruz will want the report first thing this morning so get it done, Laimo.”

  When Rory saw Laimo headed for her computer, she lingered.

  “Move,” Laimo said. “Some of us have real police work to do.”

  “Shouldn’t take too long.” Rory kept her voice low. “ ‘Dear Diary, I was the last one in and the first one out. I did nothing and helped no one, but don’t I look good in my black uniform.’ ”

  Laimo’s eyes flashed and her nose flared. She stood, her hands clenched, and waited for Rory to move. Eventually, Rory did, joining Jace against the wall.

  Viciously, Laimo snapped off Jace’s jazz and began pounding on the keys.

  “Okay.” Badge 429 took a deep breath. “So our two girls are speeding down the road.”

  Rory groaned. “Man, I thought we were done with this.”

  “What the hell is this guy’s name?” Kleopping asked. “Does anyone actually know him?”

  The guy colored. “I’m Travis. Stokeley? That’s not funny.”

  Rory nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  “So anyway, these chicks are flying. 80 . . . 90 miles an hour. There’s a brunette driving. She says to her blonde friend, ‘Do you see any cops following us?’ The blonde turns and looks and says, ‘Yeah. He’s coming up fast.’ So our driver says, ‘I can’t afford another ticket. Are his red and blue flashing lights on?’ The blonde says, ‘Yes . . . no . . . yes . . . no . . . yes . . .’ ”

  Everyone laughed but beneath it, Jace caught Laimo’s glare and it left her with the impression she and Rory had just been put on a list. Jace tried to look casual and easy in her own skin.

  “By the way.” Jace edged a bit closer to Rory. “Troglodytes don’t scare me, either . . . much.”

  CHAPTER 3

  On shift the next night, Christmas night, Deputy Jose Urrea kept his hard, brown eyes on Jace. His forehead crinkled like the skin of a pea while the fingers of his right hand played at a scar just under his lip. The man stood about six foot two and he carried that bulk effortlessly. He walked toward her easily, with just a bit of street rolling through his hips.

  “What’s the problem, chiquita?” His voice was low so that only they could hear.

  Jace stood behind the jailer’s desk in B Pod. It was tonight’s assignment and so far, it had been quiet, though they were moving a little slow locking down the lower tier of prisoners. “What makes you think I have a problem?”

  Urrea chuckled. “Moving slow like my old Gramps. Got some heavy-duty bags under your eyes. You really tired or maybe you smoked up some mota.”

  “Mota?”

  “The sacred herb. If you sucked down a blunt, I won’t tell . . . the Lord above knows we all need some every now and then, but you drop dirty and you will have a problem.”

  “So . . . can I buy some of your piss? I assume it’s clean.”

  “Clean as a whistle . . . at least that’s what my supplier says. And for you? I’ll sell it wholesale.”

  “Don’t want to line your pockets at co-workers’ expense?”

  “Line my pockets? I’m barely paying my bills. Mom can’t work anymore and my bro lost his job a couple months ago.” He pantomimed tightening his belt. “Getting scary at the Urrea household.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. Have to increase your piss sales, I guess.”

  “So ho
w much can I put you down for?”

  “No mota for me, Urrea.”

  “No? Or no mas?”

  She stared at him. “My particular vice doesn’t run to weeds.”

  Near the stairs, where a handful of inmates paid half-hearted attention to the TV, one inmate stared from inside his cell with a goofy grin on his thin lips. What do you want, buddy, Jace wondered. But even as she thought it, her gaze moved to the upper tier, which was already locked down for the night. After a few seconds, she looked back at the inmate’s cell. His name was Anthony Tate and he now sat regally on the stainless-steel toilet with his jail-issue orange pants at his ankles. His eyes laughed at her before going back to his comic book.

  In spite of the embarrassment of seeing a man on the toilet, Jace felt a swell in her chest. I’m catching the signs, she thought. A few months on the job and, just like Rory said would happen, she was beginning to notice the little things. In this case, it was an inmate who’d never given her a moment’s thought who had suddenly decided to favor her with a sloppy grin.

  Dillon called them “curiosity ticklers” but Rory called them “hot spots.” “See, I used to have a dog,” she’d said once, “and this mutt would lick and lick and lick until he had a hot spot. Then Mom and I would have to get some medicine and put it on his paws and watch him so it would heal. Huge pain in the butt. But I got to where I could spot the difference between regular licking and hot-spot licking.”

  “Regular licking?” Jace had asked.

  Rory had colored a deep red. “Yeah, you know, regular licking . . . the fun kind. Anyway, if I saw the hot-spot licking I could do something about it before it happened.”

  Recognize those jail hot spots, Rory believed, and a jailer would be able to solve most of the small problems before they became big problems.

  The hot spot now was that he was off the toilet, pants hitched at his waist, comic book gripped tightly, but Jace hadn’t heard a flush. These toilets, built to withstand riots and fires and endless attempts to take them apart for escape or weapons or boredom, flushed with the fury of an artillery barrage.

  Urrea came up behind her. “What’s your vice, then, it ain’t weeds?”

  “Corona and Daniel’s. Barbeque.”